Because we’re getting more liberal about marijuana laws, we may have to sacrifice a bit on the salmon front

In 2013, we saw a shift in marijuana legalization viewpoint — more people approved it than not. That led to legalization in Colorado, which led to the first person ever to buy it legally in Colorado, which led to this epic photo:

“In marijuana cultivation sites, regulations regarding proper use of pesticides are completely ignored and multiple compounds are used to target any and all threats to the crop, including compounds illegal in the U.S.,” she said.

The odd thing about this 1-2 step in northern California is that — and this is primarily within my experience, but I have seen it more broadly — often the people smoking the most pot in their late-teens to mid-20s are the people that, in their 30s, are buying salmon on the regular at Whole Foods (I actually think this was the entire shift of 1960s to 1980s America — the hippies became the kingmakers). So it’s weird to see a yin and a yang between pot growth and salmon decline, but that analogy might be a bit of an overreach.

Salmon supply world-wide right now is a bit tight, so any of these types of stories will get some attention (remember the global wine shortage situation in late October?) For the short-term, it should be alright (both on the salmon front and the wine front, for those of you that like to pair fish with a nice red), but a bigger issue here might be the guidelines put in place for marijuana cultivation, especially if we see more states ‘crop’ (HA HA!) up with legalization.